Tell ’em Steve Dave:Overkill – OSX joins the party!

My favourite podcast, Tell ‘em Steve Dave, recently announced a 16 week run of exclusive content on the Zune Marketplace, which initially looked like it effectively excluded Mac owners.

Although it’s possible to run Windows on any intel based Mac (OSX 10.5 or later) using BootCamp, the real issue is the way Microsoft has built regionalisation into Windows Live, which makes it a little harder than just installing the Zune software on a Bootcamp partition.

Podcasts are only available on the US Zune Marketplace, so the content is unavailable to anyone with a non USA Windows live account.

Similar issues exist with W7 phones and Xbox Live accounts, which doesn’t bode well for keeping my GamerTag and score when I move to Australia, but I digress.

Here’s a work around to get access to TESD:Overkill – it’s not a particularly elegant solution, but it does the trick:

1- Beg, borrow or steal a copy of Windows XP.

If you can get a copy with Service pack 3 slipstreamed into it you will save a bit of time running updates during the install.

During the install, when Windows prompts you for your location/region select USA.

If you’ve already got a working installation of XP/Bootcamp set to another region which you don’t want to mess around with, then go to the control panel and create another user account just for accessing US Zune content.

Once the account has been created, go back to control panel, region/location and set the location to USA.

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4 Responses to “Tell ’em Steve Dave:Overkill – OSX joins the party!”

I realise not everyone will have a copy of XP (legit or not) gathering dust, but seriously there are ways and means.

I was fortunate enough to have a copy of XP when I switched to a Mac last year, plus I had a piece of hardware that wouldn’t play ball with OSX so I already had a 30gb BootCamp partition set up and haven’t been too fussed or precious about having a dual boot system.

Yeah, Zune is on Xbox, but to get access to the Market Place you need to cough up credit card details, even if you want free content, and I’m speculating that my UK Xbox account wouldn’t allow me to access TESD:O anyway.
I personally do all my Xbox transactions via prepaid cards as I don’t trust Microsoft with my card details, given their history of gaping security holes in operating systems and software, which is put into stark context when you consider the recent data theft across the rival PS3 network…

ok so it seems like the only way to get Zune on Macs is to get Windows OS? I can’t believe that. Also when I go on my XBOX 360 I don’t know how to access the podcasts from the Zune section. It looks like you can’t. I’ve been working on this for hours trying to figure out how to get this stupid Zune Software and all I think is how stupid Zune is.

I downloaded episode 2 on torrents via demonoid and when I added it to iTunes I had the option to ‘subscribe’ which then downloaded all 3, I think I can now get it on iTunes but Ill have to wait until episode 4 on so on. I live in U.K and have a Macbook. It might be a way to look into for other non-US non-PC users. Especially without loading Windows onto your Mac.

To be fair, a dual boot Windows install is the way to go if you’re bothered about TESD catching good numbers for the pod; although the additional subscribers are all going to be individuals excluded through Microsoft’s shitty practices for their second tier service!

Personally speaking, the original RSS feed method failed for me on episode two, but the feedburner url seems to be working fine so far. Obviously I’ll dual boot into XP once a week to download the episode legitimately… 😉